Live from the T&C Philanthropy Summit

The T&C team keeps track of the latest at the New York Historical Society.

By
Town&Country Staff

May 7, 2015

4:21: "Sometimes we get a [media] inquiry, 'How old are your founders?' And I'm like, Why does it matter? It's surprising." Catherine Shimony on ageism in fashion industry.

4:16: "If a guy leaves work early, we say What a great dad. If a woman does, it's, What a slacker."--Jane Wurwand

4:06: "My mum used to say, If you're out of your pajamas by 3 in the afternoon, it's a good day."-- Jane Wurwand on the need for authentic images of women, not superheroes.

4:03: "You have to show images of powerful women." Ambassador Avant

3:57: "Bravery isn't the absence of fear. It's the courage to push through fear."-- Jane Wurwand

3:52: "Until I was 40, I didn't realize there was bias against women. Then I got a job at the Long Island Railroad." --Bonnie Stone

3:48: "We house 4500 people every night in our shelters in NYC. 2600 of them are children. Eighty percent of the 4500 are women and children. The face of homelessness is completely different from what most people think." —Bonnie Stone of Women In Need

3:42: "You should have heard our conversation backstage. We have just solved all the world's problems by putting women in charge!" —Tamron Hall introducing her panel, Beginning With Women, featuring Catherine Shimony of Global Goods, Bonnie Stone of Women in Need, Jane Wurwand of Dermalogica and FITE, and Ambassador Nicole Avant.

3:34 Can't help but wonder where this Mary Grace Henry will end up going to college... Any bets?

3:29: Jessica Matthews of Uncharted Play talks about her company's Motion-based Off-grid Renewable Energy, or MORE, technology. It's being used in a new line of "smart" sports products that are self charging (such as jump ropes that give you info on your calories burned). "We are excited to show the Adidases of the world that we're coming to play in a sustainable way."

3:25: Parents take note!! Jane Chen debuting a sleep sack she developed that's lined with special technology that keeps your baby at exactly the right temperature. "Lots of babies using them are sleeping better through the night." Buy one and one of her Embrace Warmers is donated to the developing world.

3:21: "Sheryl WuDunn should take you on all of her book tours" —Cheryl Dorsey to the incredibly eloquent Mary Grace Henry who, again is, SIXTEEN!

3:14: We're best known for energy generating sports products like a soccer ball or jump rope that you can use, then plug into a lamp. The idea came from the time I spent in Nigeria seeing the power go out several times a day. People use things then like kerosene lamps, and living with a kerosene lamp is like smoking two packs a day. —Jessica O. Matthews of Uncharted Play

3:13: At the age of 12 I started Reverse the Course which provides education to girls by selling hair accessories, which has sponsored 66 girls' educations, says 16-YEAR-OLD Mary Grace Henry.

3:11: Our mission is to help the government of developing nations to provide vision correction to their people, says Sebastian Ling of Vision for a Nation Foundation. They gave nurses in Rwanda glasses with dial-adjustable prescriptions to dole out to patients.

3:09: 3 million babies die each year in first 28 days of their lives. They need incubators but incubators are expensive and require continuous electricity. So Jane Chen of Embrace developed an insulated sleeping bag that keeps premature infants alive.

3:05: Starting now is WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT? moderated by Cheryl Dorsey of the incredible Echoing Green which funds the next generation of leaders solving social problems.

3:01: John Prendergast's story of getting involved in Africa is too sweeping to sound byte, but trust us, it's incredibly amusing (it involves embassy shenanigans, plural marriage, and basketball). Check back for video.

2:54: The whole thing is hinged on a two pronged approach: 1) Let the world know what is happening. Because these perpetrators work in the dark. 2) And to use that same information giving technique and work with people in power, people who can change things. —Ismail

2:50 It's fascinating that we are in this day and age and the G word - genocide - is happening even as we speak. —Ismail, who came to the U.S. as a refugee from the Sudan and went on to Dartmouth and the Harvard's Kennedy School.

2:49: It's about wiping clean to the maximum extent you can from the international financial system those that infect it. —Prendergast

2:46: Forensic accounting is the key to figuring out who is involved and accountable, according to Ismail.

2:41: There is huge asset transfer from those victimized to those who are victimizing. Banks, shipping companies -- all kinds of companies profit from genocide, says Prendergast. "Boom, that's a vulnerability."

2:36: Now T&C's own Kevin Conley will interview John Prendergast and Omer Ismail from Enough Project on Ending Genocide.

2:29: And we're back from an incredible lunch with conversations with Jon Bon Jovi and Adrian Grenier (and food by the incomparable Marcus Samuelsson)

12:33

Steve Osofsky: We can put a dollar value on the loss to ecosystem. You buy a cookie made with palm oil, are you paying for the cost to the people damaged by the haze from the fires used to clear the land to grow that palm oil crop? No.

12:30

Steve Osofsky: If you travel to Africa, it's not just about dealing with this crisis in a paramilitary fashion. We have to work with local stewardship, so they see the benefits of living with wildlife. If people only see elephants trampling their crops, they're not going to be invested in their preservation.

12:20

Wildlife Conservation with Steve Osofsky: In order to preserve cattle in Africa and separating it from buffalo, who carried a disease that fatal to the beef herds, there were decades spent building fences that in an unintended consequence cut off the routes of migratory wild animals and wreaked havoc with their populations.

Adam Braun: You have to make sure that the next generation is brought into the family foundation. I was with a huge donor, and he was so excited that his little daughter had just raised $44 dollars for Pencils of Promise at her lemonade stand.

Abigail : Fail, fail again, then talk about it. Fail enough that you can see the patterns in your failure. Philanthropy has the root of love, and as Cornel West said justice is what love looks like in public. Oh, can I say one more thing? There is nothing uncool or stupid about idealism.

Kinga Lampert: What we're most excited about today is we've raised $27 million dollar fund to understand metastasis.

11:54

Abigail Disney: I think there's something that happens in family foundations, you get bored and want to go on to the next shiny new thing. But with a family foundation, this is not about whether or not you're bored. If a foundation has been supporting something like Ubuntu Education Fund that has been doing soemthing well for 12 years, you should keep supporting them.

11:51

Michaela Pereira: How do you get people to think in terms of long term investment?

Jacob Lief: I think you have to make 3 to 5 years commitment. Raising children is not scalable. I wish I could say that my message is the same thing I was saying 16 ago. We don't. We learned along way.

11:47

Adam Braun, on raising money: In the early days, you kind of say yes to anybody, but when you realize how enduring the work is and how much you really can accomplish, you line up expectations up front.

11:44

Abigail Disney: I love everybody. I think my totem animal is a Labrador Retriever. And I think it benefits everybody if you just tell them the truth.

11:41

Jacob Lief: We used to raise $10 million a year, we used to call it drug money, because it was sexy and exciting and it was killing our soul. We stopped that now we're raising $5 million a year and people really believe in our message.

11:40

Adam Braun, founder of Pencils of Promise, on fundraising: Every time someone tells me no, that to me is a deferred maybe.

11:40

Pereira: There is a great deal of emotional passion in everything you do. How do you keep that passion and still create a structure that makes that passion work?

Kinga: So many people are touched by breast cancer. So it's easy to make connections and get people involved. And the money from corporations so much comes from individuals in those companies.

11:38

Michaela Pereira asks Abigail Disney, about juggling so many roles, as a documentarian, activist and philanthropist, "How do you get clarity?"

Abigail Disney: "Clarity is overrated."

11:35

Jacob Lief, on his early approach to funding his philanthropy: When I started I was 20, at the University of Pennsylvania, they were handing out a lot of credit cards. So I took eight.

11:30

Adam, what did you take from Bain that you're using now at Pencils for Promise.

He remembers his parents, who told him when he started traveling the world, Adam, we'll support you, just not financially. "This drove my entrepreneurial impulse."

11:26

Question for Kinga: How did you come to philanthropy?

"I was invited to join many boards and I thought my involvement would only be financial or social. And then I had lunch with Evelyn Lauder, who started Breast Cancer Research Foundation. And when I took a seat on the board I was really glad to see this is working board."

11:24

Michaela Pereira, of CNN, opens the next panel, Funding Your Philanthropy, with a burst of energy! And the intros begin.

10:50

Foster: We need arts and science education in our schools.

10:32

Sutton Foster: This year's Tony Awards will include an Excellence in Drama Education award, given to a teacher nominated by his or her students.

10:28

Saltzman: Robin Hood wants to help every public school to teach computer science.

10:15

Reshma Saujani, founder or Girls Who Code: "I'm not a coder, but I am a feminist. And I don't want to live in a world that's run by men."

10:12

David Saltzman of the Robin Hood Foundation introduces the panel on education: Sutton Foster, Paula Kerger, and Reshma Saujani.

10:08

Bally CEO Frederic de Narp announces a new partnership between Bally and Save the Children.

9:52

Malkas: "Big Pharma's not going to do it. Their shareholders wouldn't let them do it. It's up to us."

9:43

Thompson: We're going to see a significant advances in cancer treatment in our lifetimes.

9:38

Couric: "Why does everyone look at me when they say colonoscopy?"

9:36

Thompson: We used to think cancer had one cause. Now we know each type of cancer is different.

9:30

Craig Thompson says huge strides have been made fighting breast cancer. Promising efforts are now focusing on pancreatic and lung cancer.

9:26

Couric: Private philanthropy must pick up the slack in the face of declining federal funding.

9:19

Linda Malkas: By encouraging scientists and doctors from different disciplines to work together, "Stand Up to Cancer changed the paradigm."

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